


The Scientific Method

by Pippin4242



Category: Eyeshield 21
Genre: Gen, M/M, basically a prequel to chamaeleo calyptratus, final piece of my commission work for now, in which hiruma is at least as much of a loser as rui
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-17
Updated: 2018-01-17
Packaged: 2019-03-06 03:53:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13402911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pippin4242/pseuds/Pippin4242
Summary: Hiruma's dog likes Rui.But what does it MEAN.





	The Scientific Method

**Author's Note:**

  * For [grimcognito](https://archiveofourown.org/users/grimcognito/gifts).



Cerberus was a nasty little dog. Fifteen inches of hard muscle and once-flea-bitten coat, his oversized teeth were the only part of him which had always been in good condition. He shat where he wanted, destroyed things because he felt like it, and he bit people he didn't like.

Perhaps a really good dog trainer, with all the time in the world – and maybe also the burden of a gigantic hero complex – could have made him into something passable as a pet. But Cerberus had never had a real trainer. He'd had Hiruma, who thought fast and was determined to think for himself at all times, and who only really valued those two qualities in an animal.

The old cliché is that dogs are like their owners. But while Hiruma also had impressive fangs and a hateful streak a mile wide, he also usually shat indoors, and nobody had ever seen him bite anyone, though naturally they had their suspicions.

The point was, Cerburus was a dog who disliked most people, and most people were reasonable enough to be afraid of him in return.

Usually Hiruma just let him do what he wanted. He'd never seen Cerberus actually _kill_ anything bigger than a rat, and he'd never paid money for the animal, or adopted it or anything serious like that. The dog had just started following him one day. Couldn't be blamed for what it did.

He wasn't sure why it irked him so much to see the dog act out of character. Cerberus was a _hell-hound_ after all. The school authorities were scared shitless of him, the police hated him and so did chair legs the world over. Surely being an evil son of a literal bitch was linked intrinsically to unpredictability? Surely he should have _expected_ the dog (never _his_ dog) to do what it wanted, even when what it wanted was _weird_ and _uncalled-for_?

But lately, just lately. Whenever he dropped by Zokugaku, or when he called Habashira, his number-one indentured servant, Cerberus was acting super fucking weird. Like, he _always_ followed Hiruma if he was going there. And if Hiruma happened to call Habashira over, Cerberus would look up from wherever he was sleeping, and demand to be let out if they were indoors together, or run off if they happened to be outdoors. Like he was agitated, like he was horny or something (though Hiruma had put paid to _that_ little possibility a while back – he wasn't the dog's _owner_ or anything, but he didn't want anybody telling him he was responsible for a whole litter of the damn things). Except the damn dog would always only get as far as Habashira.

These days he'd actually get as far as putting his stubby little damn legs up on the bike for a _pat_ , and once, when Hiruma was _nearly_ out of earshot, he could have sworn the little fucker had _whined_ for attention.

Why was this bothering him? It wasn't _normal_ to be kept up at night by this sort of thing. Cerberus might be a little shit, but he was still a _dog_ and dogs were meant to _like_ being patted, right?

Maybe it was _Rui_ who was annoying him. Maybe it was seeing someone who acted all high and mighty and too cool for school getting fluffy over an animal, and not even a good animal at that.

“You know he bites,” Hiruma had scowled once.

“Ain't ever bitten me,” Rui had glared back.

Sometimes Hiruma didn't know why he fucking bothered with anybody or anything.

“Fine, get bit, that'll only help my team out anyway, asshole,” he'd muttered and strode off. Which didn't even feel like a _victory_ , except what was he supposed to be fighting anyway? The notion of his (not his) shitty dog having _friends_?

What was so fucking special about Rui anyway?

Cerberus chased Sena whenever Hiruma casually suggested it. He stole food from Kurita. He barked at Yukimitsu (which was fine; it was toughening that four-eyed fuck up). He'd never tried to bite Hiruma, but that was probably only because Hiruma wasn't stupid enough to aggravate anything with teeth like a bear trap.

Now Hiruma was no fool. He wasn't just well-read, he was self-aware too. So he also knew that, like his horrible dog, he was more or less known in the area as a small, biting, unpredictable menace. And Cerberus was a dog willing to follow Hiruma, and maybe even sort of depend on him for food and shelter, but never actually displaying the kind of direct, friendly loyalty most pets seemed to feel for their owners. Which was what Hiruma both wanted and enjoyed in a... animal companion. So it seemed right to think there were... certain commonalities between the human and (his) dog. And where a major discrepency was creeping in, either Hiruma or the dog might need to take a look at their priorities.

And Cerberus clearly liked Rui.

No, that was ascribing human emotions to a non-human creature. Hiruma felt tackling this rationally was the way to go. What had his horrible dog incontrovertibly communicated about his attitude towards the Zokugawa quarterback so far?

  * he was alert to Rui's presence
  * the prospect of seeing Rui seemed to make him feel energetic, be that excitement, anticipation or actual fondness
  * he was interested in or unafraid of Rui's motorbike
  * he was good at getting Rui to display his softer side



Where, in all this, were human and dog truly at odds? Hiruma was definitely alert to Rui's presence, but maybe that didn't count – he was the one who was always responsible for calling Rui out to Deimon, after all.

The prospect of seeing Rui – again, not exactly a surprise for him – did give him a little shot of adrenaline most days. It meant something was going to _happen_ , and with a mind like Hiruma's, it was often easy to fall into the trap of thinking nothing was happening at all. He wasn't sure about fondness. How do you quantify something like that? Hiruma was good at recognising it in others – it was around him in all forms. Mamori's tenderness towards Sena, and Sena's delicacy when it came to the possibility of spurning her nurturing overtures, Unsui's desperate placation of Agon as he tried to stop his twin from wrecking his life, Harao's faith in Banba and, indeed, the reverse. But it was hard to know what fondness would look or feel like if it came from inside Hiruma himself. He wasn't _nice_ , he knew, and it wouldn't be likely to look like it did in other people. He was vaguely aware, with the clarity that came with the passage of time, that he was definitely, appreciably fond of his old friends at the base, and of Musashi and Kurita. Beyond that, it was hard to be certain. There were definitely people who it pained him less to associate with. He didn't like to overstate it, and it was hard to find the feeling to measure it against. Perhaps he _was_ fond of Rui. It was possible that he was fond of Rui. But there was no appreciably scientific way to explore this hypothesis, or to test it.

Moving on, Hiruma didn't really give a shit about Rui's motorbike, but he definitely wasn't scared of it (though perhaps that wasn't a fair comparison, since he wasn't fourteen inches tall). It did represent, to Hiruma, a certain degree of possibility, and therefore, a touch of intrigue, so once again his opinion didn't clash with the dog's presumed opinion.

Was he, like Cerberus, good at getting Rui to display a softer side?

Fuck it, worth a try.


End file.
